Chances in pretty much any Masters Counseling?

Graduate School
1

I am currently a student at a Texas School. I’ve always wanted to go to ASU for a long time, but never had the resources to. I want to pursue a Masters in Counseling. I am a Psychology Major with a Minor in Biology. Here are my GPAs as of now :

Overall GPA: 3.07
Psych GPA: 2.37

I did screw up the first 3 years of undergrad. I got some A’s, some B’s, several C’s, and two D’s. The reason is because I was not prepared for college because I went to a bad high school. Also, most of those C’s and those 2 D’s are in upper division Psychology Courses. However, this is just as of now. I plan on getting straight A’s from here on out in everything. Calculating if I get Straight A’s, I will graduate with:

Overall GPA: 3.2
Psych GPA: 3.0

If I score really high on the GRE and have research experience and volunteer experience, putting everything together, what are my chances of getting into ASU?

2

First thing you need to do is figure out why you got the Cs and D’s in upper division Psychology courses. What went wrong?

Also, why do you think on planning to get A’s will happen now? Does that not sound like magical thinking? Why did you not plan to get A’s before?

You should talk to your adviser or a trusted professor about your GPA and grad school. Ask them what would be a plan? Clearly you need to get better grades in your psych classes other wise …why would a grad school want to admit someone who doens’t seem to be able to do the work? Also would you maybe need to take extra upper level classes to show that you can do the work? Also you have to get some A’s so you can have a professor that will write you a good recommendation letter.

3

I went to a bad high school that never prepared me for college at all. I was not ready to take on undergrad work. However, I feel my undergrad school has prepared me for what to expect in graduate school. And do masters in counseling programs not require a high GPA? I’ve heard that they do not require as high of a GPA as like a PhD in Clinical Psychology Program. Would I have higher chances at a for profit school than a known campus with a winning sports team? I really don’t want to sit out a year. I want to get into grad school right away.

4

For profit schools are not very well respected; depending on the school, our degree may not even be worth the paper it is written on.

I don’t think you have a great chance of being accepted. I’m sorry.

5

Not even to a for profit school? So pretty much I’ll never ever get my Masters, all because of my GPA being below a 3.5. Not even a school like Antioch would accept me? Or like Argosy?

6

@psychguy92: dessie most certainly didn’t say that you’ll never be able to get your Master’s. But with how low your GPA is, it is unlikely that you’ll be able to attend graduate school right away like you said that you’d like to (although I’m not sure about whether or not you can get accepted to Antioch or Argosy, as this is the first time I’ve heard of either institution). Instead, you’re probably going to have to do one or both of the following (keeping in mind that some people equate the difficulty of taking one graduate-level class with the difficulty of taking two undergraduate classes):

  • Take some extra upper-division courses (as bopper suggested) or, even better, some graduate-level courses and pass them with Bs or As
  • Work for a couple of years to distance yourself from your GPA

No matter what you decide to do, it seems like you have your work cut out for you. So I wish you the best of luck.

7

Well my final overall GPA, and I did calculate this. If I make this my last D which is my 2nd D and I get all A’s my senior year, I will graduate with an overall GPA of 3.3 and Psych GPA of 3.1. It’s pretty low, but I do plan to get high GRE Scores. I also have a pretty good CV too.

8

Well, first of all, if you don’t want to take a gap year at all remember that programs will never SEE your senior year grades. If you are planning to graduate in May 2016 and start a psychology program in September 2016, that means you’d have to apply for master’s programs this fall - between November 2015 and maybe early February 2015. If your application deadlines are primarily in December and early January, as most of them are, your programs won’t see your new senior year grades. They’ll only see what you have done so far, ad frankly, your chances of getting into any master’s program are slim to none - even a for-profit program (unless it’s the kind that simply takes your money regardless of how you do, but you don’t want one of those). So I think you pretty much have to take a gap year, at least.

Secondly, why would you assume/predict that you will get straight As if until now your performance has been primarily Bs and Cs? It would be great if you did, but I think when predicting your potential GPA you need to be realistic because it lets you plan better. In fact, consider a range of possibilities. What will your GPA look like if you get mostly Bs and a few As, or a mix of As and Bs? I find it far more likely that your GPA will be somewhere between a 3.1 and a 3.25, and that your psychology GPA might be between a 2.5 and a 3.0 (maybe like 2.7, if you do well).

That said, even if you did get a 3.0 in your psychology classes, that is just barely scraping up the stated minimums for most programs. And many programs are quite competitive, so just because you have the minimum doesn’t mean that you will get accepted. I think that your chances even for Spring 2017 are pretty low; even if you did fantastically next year.

You need to take some time between undergrad and grad. You can take a few graduate-level psychology classes to show that you can excel at graduate work, and you can work in a counseling-related position for a year or two to show your interest and give you something else compelling to put on your CV. Your record needs to be otherwise outstanding to make up for the low GPA. (High GRE scores don’t make up for a low GPA - they can help, but the whole rest of the package needs to be excellent.)

Final thoughts. Most master’s programs in psychology actually will not allow you to practice counseling. You have to make sure that you 1) live in or plan to move to a state that licenses master’s level counselors to practice therapy, and 2) go to a program that leads to licensure in the state in which you live in. The last part is very important! There are many master’s programs in clinical psychology, for example, whose purpose is to prepare students for PhD programs in clinical psychology and they do NOT offer a path to licensure.

In fact, the master’s programs that offer a path to licensure often aren’t called psychology at all - they’re called “mental health counseling.” The main webpage will tell you whether it does.

9

So I may end up sitting out a few years? I never realized how hard it is to get into graduate school. So I would say in 2019 I will probably start my Masters, 4 years from now.